Her Own Legend
by Butterflywing
Summary: Danielle Fenton has been on the run for a year and a half, and Vlad's finally caught up with her. It seems Amity Park is the only safe place left for her, but with a mysterious orange stone, it seems doubtfull that she'll ever get there. EragonDP Xover
1. Vlad

**Her Own Legend**

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**Chapter One**

'**Vlad'**

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**Disclaimer- I do not own Danny Phantom or Eragon. I own some of the characters in chapter one, but that's it.**

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**I got this idea a few months ago, but wasn't really sure what to do with it until now. Don't expect very long or fast updates, because I have no idea how it's going to end. So yea, that's about it.**

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**Full Summary- Dani has been on the run for a year and a half, since the last time she saw her 'cousin' Danny. But now it seems she has no choice but to go back to Amity Park, because she's having trouble going into her ghost form- in fact, she can't do it at all. Unfortunately, she has no money, and she's stranded halfway across the country from where she needs to be. When a mysterious woman gives her a strange orange stone, she thinks her problems are solved- she can sell the stone and be back in California within a week.**

**But then things go horribly wrong, and Dani is thrown into a whole new world, where she's going to have to find the secret of her stone fast- or die.**

**----**

"Dani, did you finish the homework for Science?"

Dani slammed the purple door of her locker shut to see her friend Alyssa leaning against the locker to her right.

"There was homework?"

Alyssa sighed and said, "You forgot?"

"Don't you mean you forgot _again_?" Zach asked from the locker to her left.

Dani stamped hard on his toe, causing him to drop his books. As he bent down to get them, Dani grabbed the lock from his locker and twisted it around before clicking it shut.

Zach looked up at the sound.

"Oh man, you butterflied my locker!"

"Well maybe if you weren't doing it to everyone else people wouldn't do it to you," Alyssa pointed out. Dani gathered up her math and science book from the ground and the two headed upstairs.

------

Five minutes later, Dani slipped into the science classroom, waving a good-bye to Alyssa, who was headed for History.

She was met with the unpleasant sight of her science teacher bearing down on her.

"Miss Fenton, would you care to explain why you are late… AGAIN?!"

"I was in the bathroom," Dani muttered, trying to step past her.

"Attempting to finish you homework, no doubt," said the teacher (whose name was Ms. Riche- Not _Miss_ Riche, not _Mrs._ Riche, _Ms._ Riche, and heaven help you if you slipped up and said anything else), grabbing the offending piece of paper from her pupil. "Yes, just as I thought," she said, holding up the slightly ratty piece of paper up for the class to see, "BLANK!"

The class jumped as Ms. Riche screamed the last word.

"Go to your seat," she said to Dani.

"Yes, Mrs. Riche," Dani muttered, slinking to her spot in the very back.

"THAT'S _MS._ RICHE TO YOU!"

Dani _might_ have made it through the rest of the class without further incident, if Zach had not chosen _that _particular moment to come into the classroom.

Ms. Riche closed her eyes and looked to the ceiling as if in silent prayer, and said, "Why are my students conspiring to kill me before I reach the age of forty-five?"

The ceiling didn't answer, but Zach took the opportunity to attempt an escape to his desk at the back of the classroom, but Ms. Riche noticed.

"Will you please _explain_ to me why you decided to be late to my class this morning?"

Zach muttered something.

"I'm sorry; I couldn't hear that, would you please speak up?"

The class shivered as one. Ms. Riche being nice was somehow even worse than Ms. Riche being mean.

Zach said something else, still too quiet to be heard.

"I _said_ speak UP!"

The class breathed a unanimous sigh of relief. _That _was the science teacher they had come to know since the start of the school year.

"I had trouble opening my locker," Zach muttered, barely audible. Obviously, Ms. Riche heard him.

"And why did you have trouble opening your locker?"

"Because someone butterflied it," Zach answered with a quick, guilty glance at Dani.

"And who, pray tell, did this? For the love of God, do I have to drag the story out of you?"

"I don't know," Zach answered, dropping his gaze to his feet.

"Yes you do," said Ms. Riche, "I can tell, I can _always _tell. Now tell me who. Butterflied. Your. LOCKER!"

The class flinched again.

"Dani," Zach muttered, shooting another glance at the girl, this time an apologetic one.

"I see," said Ms. Riche, "I see… Well, Dani, I'm very surprised at you…"

Dani rolled her eyes, ready for another lecture about responsibility or… some such nonsense.

"I doubt that _Daniel_ would have done something like this to a classmate, no matter how much they offended him."

Dani's jaw dropped.

Ms. Riche groaned and crumpled to the floor as something shot out of her. A moment later the 'something' had solidified itself into the shape of Vlad Plasmius.

Most of the class screamed, too shocked to even try to run for the door.

"Missed me?" Vlad hissed at her.

"An entire year I have been searching for you (I must say you have done a very good job hiding), and now at last have found you.

Dani glared at him, ready to go ghost, surrounded by classmates or not, but almost as if he sensed her intent, Vlad had flown down, jabbing something into her side.

She screamed as an electric pulse shot through her body- every limb, every cell, and every strand of borrowed DNA felt like it was on fire. She felt her feet begin to turn to liquid and fought hard to solidify herself again.

Vlad grinned cruelly as the young girl dropped to her hands and knees in pain, removing the device.

"You like it?" He whispered in her ear. Dani flinched away from his cold breath, but he grabbed her, holding her close, "An improved version of the Plasmius Maximus, specially made to strip a clone completely of their ghost powers- it works too. I've tested it. So don't expect to be getting out of here any time soon."

Despite the lingering pain in every molecule, Dani staggered to her feet, and whispered hoarsely, "Catch me… if you can…" And she was off, running towards the door, wrenching it open, Vlad (who had not expected her to be in good enough shape to do anything, much less attempted escape) cursing, and flying after her, only to find her gone by the time he got to the door.

----

Dani was just lucky that the door to the staircase near her locker was right next to the science room, and that Vlad had expected her to show no resistance and had brought no guards.

But even with her head start, she knew it was only a matter of moments until he found her, and this time he would be taking no chances.

'_I have to get to my locker…'_ Dani thought desperately. When she had… visited the Fentons a year and a half ago, she had taken with her a thermos.

Which she had taken to school in her backpack every day since the start of the year.

This was now in her locker.

By the time she sensed Vlad come through the ceiling behind her, she was already fumbling with the lock.

Three numbers…

"You know," Vlad hissed, "If you're really trying to make a fast escape, you shouldn't stop at your locker."

Two numbers…

Dani ignored him, concentrating on finding the last two numbers in her combination.

One number…

"And why, pray tell, _are_ you trying to open your locker?"

"To get… This!"

She had turned the last number, grabbed the lock, thrown it carelessly aside, opened the locker door and grabbed the thermos from inside. Opening and activating it quickly, she pointed it at Vlad.

He tried to resist, but in the end it was futile. Dani capped the thermos. She had escaped from Vlad, but she still wasn't safe. She had to get out of that school.

Fast.

**Wow, that was a fun first chapter to write. Bet you weren't expecting Vlad, were you? Well, neither was I. Anyway, I may not update for a while, the semesters almost over at school, which can only mean two things- way more homework, and second quarter portfolios. (Shudder). Plus its Christmas tomorrow, this _may_ slow me done a little in my typing. Maybe just a _little._ So anyway, please leave a review.**


	2. Stone

**Her Own Legend**

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**Chapter Two**

'**Stone'**

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**Disclaimer- I do not own Danny Phantom (Especially Masters of all Time) or Eragon. I own some of the characters in chapter one, but that's it.**

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**Reviews for Chapter One- 3**

**Total reviews- 3**

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**Full Summary- Dani has been on the run for a year and a half, since the last time she saw her 'cousin' Danny. But now it seems she has no choice but to go back to Amity Park, because she's having trouble going into her ghost form- in fact, she can't do it at all. Unfortunately, she has no money, and she's stranded halfway across the country from where she needs to be. When a mysterious woman gives her a strange orange stone, she thinks her problems are solved- she can sell the stone and be back in California within a week.**

**But then things go horribly wrong, and Dani is thrown into a whole new world, where she's going to have to find the secret of her stone fast- or die.**

---

_She had turned the last number, grabbed the lock, thrown it carelessly aside, opened the locker door and grabbed the thermos from inside. Opening and activating it quickly, she pointed it at Vlad._

_He tried to resist, but in the end it was futile. Dani capped the thermos. She had escaped from Vlad, but she still wasn't safe. She had to get out of that school._

_Fast._

And so that's how Dani ended up walking along the edge of Lake Michigan at 10:47 on a Thursday morning, trying to avoid the suspicious stares of the people all around her, no doubt wondering what a thirteen-and-a-half-year-old girl was doing outside of school on a weekday.

Coming to Chicago had at first seemed like a brilliant idea- with so many people all around it would be a simple matter to remain undetected.

But now it seemed stupid. It had been easy enough to fly half way across the country, even with below average ghost powers, but without any at all, getting back to California would be almost impossible.

Because she had to get to California.

That was where Amity Park was, and that was the only place she could think of to find help. Danny would know what to do.

But that still left the problem of how to get there- a problem she had to solve fast. Ever since she'd first come to Chicago, Dani had been sleeping in stores, fazing into them after they were closed, but without ghost powers, she couldn't do that.

Dani was broken from her chain of thought as she collided with a woman heading the other way. "Sorry," Dani muttered, getting up and bending down to help the woman to her feet. To her surprise, the woman was already standing.

Dani started to move away, but stopped as the woman grabbed her wrist in a surprisingly strong grip. After a moment of fruitlessly attempting to break free, Dani turned back to the woman, who was examining her.

Dani was now _very_ worried- she had seen a lot of crazy people in the past eighteen months, but this was the first time one had ever managed to scare her.

The woman looked up at Dani. "Many people have been waiting for you for years uncounted."

Despite wanting to get out of this… extremely uncomfortable situation as fast as possible, she couldn't help being curious. "What do you mean?" she asked, nervously.

The woman only smiled, kindly, as though sensing Dani's nervousness, and opened a pack on her back. Dani could have run then, when the woman was occupied with her pack, neither hand gripping her, but she didn't.

Finally the woman thrust an orange stone into Dani's hand. "Be careful with this," she whispered.

Dani looked down at the stone. It was bright orange, with flecks of dark red running throughout. It was smoother than any stone she had ever seen, but dirty, as though it had been dropped in mud, dulling its color. She could tell, though, that if it was clean, it would shine brightly.

Dani looked back up at the woman, but she was gone, and Dani was once more alone on the sidewalk.

---

She had tried to calm her conscience with excuses- It's the only way I can get there, She'll never know anyway, She probably stole it in the first place- but it refused to be placated. She knew what she was doing was wrong, but she was going to do it anyway.

After the woman had left, a horrible plan had come into Dani's head- she could sell the stone and get enough money to get back to Amity Park.

It was her only choice- wasn't it?

'_You always have a choice'_ Dani shook her head in annoyance. She didn't have any of Danny's memories (She was pretty sure Vlad had created her that way on purpose, so she wouldn't have any memory of him trying to kill Jack and marry Maddie, or any of his other insane plots), but every so often a phrase or image would enter her head that she was pretty sure had come from Danny- like that.

'_You always have a choice'_ said the voice again.

"You're wrong," Dani whispered, "I _don't_ have a choice."

It was getting darker, and the streets were beginning to empty around her.

'_You always have a choice.'_

"I DON'T have a choice!"

The man crossing the street just in front of her started as she spoke and walked a little bit faster.

'_You always have a choice.'_

It was starting to rain, and Dani looked desperately for somewhere sheltered she could rest for a minute. To her great relief, she spotted a covered bus stop a block and a half away.

'_You always have a choice'_

She was running, though weather she was running away from the pouring rain or the voices in her own head, she didn't know.

'_You always have a choice.'_

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

Her face was wet, with both tears and rain.

She reached her goal and sank to the ground, gasping for air as sobs racked her small body. She had been left to fend for herself almost since she was a day old, and now these voices wouldn't leave her alone. To think that just over twelve hours ago she had been sitting in a bathroom trying to finish her homework before first period…

'_You always have a choice…'_

Dani examined the stone, determined to block out the voice by any means possible.

Firstly, it was much lighter than she would have thought just by looking at it, and made a strange ringing noise when she tapped it lightly with her fingernail.

The mud had been all but washed off by the pouring rain, and the stone's bright orange color shone bright and clear. Unfortunately, this also had the effect of making the stone incredibly slippery, and Dani dropped it.

The stone fell to the concrete floor below...

And didn't break.

Her heart in her mouth, Dani bent down and examined the stone for any cracks. There were none, but something was written in a faded-almost-washed-out kind of print.

"Ganga Shur'tugal vinr alfakyn?" **(1)**

There was a flash of bright light, and Dani vanished.

And so did the thermos containing Vlad.

**(1) Ganga means 'to go' (but I flipped it to say 'go to' so it would make more sense. Just in case anyone was wondering), Shur'tugal means 'rider', and vinr alfakyn means elf friend. A gramatical nightmare, but I'm working with limited resources here!**

**That chapter was surprisingly fun to write! Ok, not much to say here, so I'll just go publish it. **

**Also, someone asked what happened to 'A minute to Midnight'... Basically it just got really hard to only be focusing on that, so I'll probably end up switching back and forth between that story and this one once I've got a few chapters in here.**

**Au revoir! That's French for 'Please Review!'**


	3. Spell

**Her Own Legend**

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**Chapter Three**

**'Spell'**

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**Disclaimer- I do not own Danny Phantom or Eragon (especially pages seven and eight). I own some of the characters in chapter one, but that's it.**

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**Not a lot of stuff happening here, mostly filler. It was around the length I wanted it to be and it was a good place to end it, so I just did. Anyway, I hope you enjoy. ;)**

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_The mud had been all but washed off by the pouring rain, and the stone's bright orange color shone bright and clear. Unfortunately, this also had the effect of making the stone incredibly slippery, and Dani dropped it._

_The stone fell to the concrete floor below..._

_And didn't break._

_Her heart in her mouth, Dani bent down and examined the stone for any cracks. There were none, but something was written in a faded-almost-washed-out kind of print._

_"Ganga Shur'tugal vinr alfakyn?"_

_There was a flash of bright light, and Dani vanished._

_And so did the thermos containing Vlad._

Danielle Jamie Fenton was no stranger to pain.

Her first conscious thought was pain, as the stasis pod she had been 'born' in had opened, and she had fallen out, cutting herself sharply on the hard ground. Melting- _that_ was painful. Even if it was only her feet before she could get it under control again.

But she didn't think she had ever experienced pain like she was feeling now (And she hoped she never would again either). Every inch of her skin was on fire, her chest felt like it was being squeezed- it got so bad that she couldn't breath. The edges of her vision started to turn black, but just when she felt she _must _take a breath or die- It was over.

She found herself on the ground (grass, she noted, different from the concrete she had been surrounded by mere minutes before), crouched over on all fours, breathing heavily.

She felt sick, and a moment later she opened her mouth and retched on the grass. Her arms trembled with a sudden weakness, and finally she couldn't control herself any longer- she crumpled to the ground, out cold.

---

Although Dani didn't know it, she wasn't on Earth any more. The words on the stone had been a spell, designed to transport the speaker and the stone to the last remaining _good_ rider and elf friend in Alagaesia- Brom.

But unfortunately this had failed, and the spell (Which was not designed to transport the user all the way through another universe) had run out of power just before she reached Carvahall, depositing the girl in the Spine, just outside the village.

But Dani didn't know any of this, and more importantly, neither did the boy standing in front of her, an arrow knocked on his bow, his gaze never leaving her face, ready to let his arrow fly at a moment's notice, his heart beating madly, scared (weather he wanted to admit it or not) of this girl who had dropped out of the sky and ruined his hunting- for the second time in less than an hour.

-Flashback-

_Eragon knelt in a bed of trampled reed grass and scanned the tracks with a practiced eye. The prints told him that the deer had been in the meadow only a half hour before. Soon they would bed down. His target, a small doe with a pronounced limp in her left forefoot, was still with the herd. He was amazed she had made it so far without a wolf or bear catching her._

_The sky was clear and dark, and a slight breeze stirred the air. A silvery cloud drifted over the mountains that surrounded him, its edges glowing with ruddy light cast from the harvest moon cradled between two peaks. Streams flowed down the mountains from between two peaks. Streams flowed down the mountains from stolid glaciers and glistening snowpacks. A brooding mist crept along the valley's floor, almost thick enough to obscure his feet._

_Eragon was fifteen, less than a year from manhood. Dark eyebrows rested above his intense brown eyes. His clothes were worn from work. A hunting knife with a bone handle was sheathed at his belt, and a buckskin tube protected his yew bow from the mist. He carried a wood-frame pack._

_The deer had led him deep into the Spine, a range of untamed mountains that extended up and down the land of Alagaesia. Strange tales and men often came from these mountains, usually boding ill. Despite that, Eragon did not fear the Spine- he was the only hunter near Carvahall who dared track game deep into its craggy recesses._

_It was the third night of the hunt, and his food was half gone. If he did not fell the doe, he would be forced to return home empty-handed. His family needed the meat for the rapidly approaching winter and could not afford to buy it in Carvahall. _

_Eragon stood with quiet assurance in the dusky moonlight then strode into the forest toward a glen where he was sure the deer would rest. The trees blocked the sky from view and cast feathery shadows on the ground. He looked at the tracks only occasionally; he knew the way._

_At the glen, he strung his bow with a sure touch then drew three arrows and knocked one, holding the others in his left hand. The moonlight revealed twenty or so motionless lumps where the deer lay in the grass. The doe he wanted was at the edge of the herd, her left foreleg stretched out awkwardly._

_Eragon slowly crept closer, keeping the bow ready. All his work of the past three days had led to this moment. He took a last steadying breath and- an explosion shattered the night._

_The herd bolted. Eragon lunged forward, racing through the grass as a fiery wind surged past his cheek. He slid to a stop and loosed an arrow at the bounding doe. It missed by a finger's breadth and hissed into darkness. He cursed and spun around, instinctively knocking another arrow._

_Behind him, where the deer had been, smoldered a large circle of grass and trees. Many of the pines stood bare of their needles. The grass outside the charring was flattened. A wisp of smoke curled in the air, carrying a burnt smell. In the center of the blast radius laid a polished blue stone. Mist snaked across the scorched area and swirled insubstantial tendrils over the stone._

_Eragon watched for danger for several long minutes, but the only thing that moved was the mist. Cautiously, he released the tension from his bow and moved forward. Moonlight cast him in a pale shadow as he stopped before the stone. He nudged it with an arrow, and then jumped back. Nothing happened, so he warily picked it up._

_Nature had never polished a stone as smooth as this one. Its flawless surface was dark blue, except for thin veins of with that spider webbed across it. The stone was cool and frictionless under his fingers, like hardened silk. Oval and about a foot long, it weighed several pounds, though it felt lighter than it should have. Eragon found the stone both beautiful and frightening. _Where did it come from? Does it have a purpose?_ Then a more disturbing thought came to him: _Was it sent here by accident, or am I meant to have it?_ If he had learned anything from the old stories, it was to treat magic, and those who used it, with great caution._

But what should I do with the stone?_ It would be tiresome to carry, and there was a chance it was dangerous. It might be better to leave it behind. A flicker of indecision ran through him, and he almost dropped it, bit something stayed his hand. _At the very least, it might pay for some food,_ he decided with a shrug, tucking the stone into his pack._

_He would have left then, but something made him turn, and when he did, he almost gasped in shock._

_A girl lay unconscious on the ground, holding a stone like the one that had just appeared, and which he now carried, except it was orange, not blue. She looked around two years younger than him, and had long black hair._

This is too much_, though Eragon._

-End flashback-


	4. Past

**Her Own Legend**

**----**

**Chapter Four**

**'Past'**

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**Disclaimer- I do not own Danny Phantom or Eragon. I own Valerie's mom, some characters in Chapter one, and that's it. I think. Possibly. For now.**

---

**I would also like to take this opportunity to announce that this is not, in any way, what-so-ever, not even a-little-bit-in-the-farthest-reaches-of-your-imagination a DV story. Danny feels sorry for her. That's it.**

_He would have left then, but something made him turn, and when he did, he almost gasped in shock._

_A girl lay unconscious on the ground, holding a stone like the one that had just appeared, and which he now carried, except it was orange, not blue. She looked around two years younger than him, and had long black hair._

This is too much_, thought Eragon._

_-End flashback-_

Dani woke to find herself in an unfamiliar forest, sleeping about ten feet away from an unfamiliar boy, also asleep. She examined him for a moment, and then turned away, intending to leave before he could wake, but as she did, a twig snapped under her foot. She winced and froze.

---

"Will you just stand still?" Danny bellowed at the toga-wearing-ghost in front of him.

"Um, I think you mean _float_ still? We're only, like, fifty feet off the ground."

"Whatever!" Danny exclaimed. The ghost in front of him was fairly low-powered, but unfortunately he didn't have his thermos with him, and thus needed to actually throw the ancient spirit through the Fenton Portal™ in order to get rid of him- and that moment didn't seem like it could come fast enough.

"You cannot defeat me, for I am Didius, ghost of-"

"Bad attitudes?" Danny suggested, firing an ice ray at Didius, who dodged it- barely.

"Walk- ER! No way man! I am the ghost of pottery!"

Danny looked at him in shock. _"Pottery?"_

"Yes! I come from the noble country of Greece, home of some of the most beautiful pieces of art in the world! Would you like to see?"

"Um… no?" Danny said hesitantly, and as the ghost looked at him angrily, he quickly suggested, "Why don't you go ask Klemper if he wants to see?"

"Walk-ER! No way! That guy's annoying, clingy…."

While the ghost was distracted rambling, Sam ran up to the place below where they were fighting, "Danny, catch!" she tossed up the thermos, and he caught it in _relief._ Less than five seconds later, Didius was gone.

---

Meanwhile, Dani was having an intense argument with Eragon, who seemed convinced that she should come back with him to his village, while Dani honestly couldn't think of anything worse then being questioned by a bunch of strangers who would want to know who she was, where she came from, and a hundred other questions she didn't want to answer (or couldn't).

"Why won't you just come back with me?"

"Right, like it's perfectly normal for random girls to just appear in the mountains?" Dani said sarcastically.

"It's happened before."

"Oh yea? When?"

Eragon began to pack up his things, at the same time telling a story.

"Fifteen years ago a young woman appeared at the foot of the spine, injured and near death. She was eight months pregnant. She collapsed just after she was found, and people say it looked like she had been in the Spine for a month or more. Someone took her in, and Sheila (She was our town healer then) cared for her. She regained conciseness about a week later, but wouldn't speak. Soon enough the baby was born, a girl, but she vanished- the woman was distraught, crying and sobbing. She almost killed herself, but someone saw her and stopped her."

He heard no response from Dani, so continued with the story, now with a more emotional undertone to his voice.

"Four months before that, my mother came back to Carvahall, after being gone for years. My Uncle says she was finely dressed and wore a net of pearls on her head. Anyway, she was five months pregnant when she first came here, and eventually she gave birth to a son- me. That was less than a week after the woman had her baby. But my mother left, leaving me here. The woman disappeared the same night, and people say it's likely she went with my mother, probably to escape the grief of her child's death."

Eragon stopped and looked over his shoulder, expecting to see Dani listening intently, or at the very least, politely. He cursed and straightened up when he saw instead an empty clearing. Dani had vanished.

---

Danny was having another rough day. First he forgot the thermos, then there was the whole 'Didius' issue, and now- Valerie.

Not that she had done anything yet. She was sitting on the ground in Amity Park's cemetery, not even in her ghost hunting suit, slumped against something, which, considering where she was could only be a gravestone.

Danny hesitated. He definitely shouldn't be doing this. Ten to one it was a trap anyway, and even if it wasn't, he was supposed to be on patrol.

He made a decision. _'The ghosts can wait ten minutes.'_

This decided, he landed softly in front of Valerie.

She didn't notice him for at least a minute, and when she finally did, she simply glared at him and said in a slightly hoarse and choked voice, "What do you want, ghost?"

"I was just wondering… why you were crying," he said lamely, expecting a reply like 'None of your business, ghost,' or 'Why do you care?'

What she said instead shocked him.

"My mom…" she tried to say more, but couldn't help the tears that rolled down her cheeks, and turned away so he wouldn't see.

Danny waited a tactful amount of time, and then said, "Did she die?" He was genuinely interested in the answer. He had known Valerie since they were five, and he had never heard her talk about her mom.

Valerie shrugged, "I don't know," she told him, "my dad says she disappeared two months before I was born, and then two months after that I showed up again, on the doorstep. He never saw my mom again, and I've never seen anything other than pictures."

She broke down in tears again.

---

Dani was crouched on a tree branch as a million fragments of memory that weren't hers rushed through her mind. All of them seemed to feature a red-suited girl some deeply buried fragment of Danny announced was Valerie.

She was dimly aware of Eragon leaving the clearing, but made no attempt to move until later that night when the memories finally faded. She slipped down the tree and crouched down at its base, hugging her knees close to her chest. It was cold and a little bit spooky alone in the mountains at night, and against her better judgment, Dani made a decision.

'_Tomorrow I will go down the mountain and find Eragon's village.'_ She shivered as a wolf howled somewhere in the distance.

'_If I can make it down alive.'_

**Ok then, there we go! A little bit more of a plot! Like I said, this is NOT a DV fic. No offense to people who like that pairing, I just don't like writing it. **

**On a side note, I do not own Didius. He stems from a very interesting conversation in reading class during a vocab test, in which someone was trying to spell 'Odious' and somehow ended up with 'Didius.' My friend Justine and I agreed Didius sounded like some ancient Grecian person, so I had to put him in. The Walk-ER thing also comes from reading class, this time from A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. Someone says it on the last page, so everyone in my c lass has been walking around saying 'walk-ER' for about a week and a half. And if that explanation confused you… too bad. I'm confused too. Anyway, sorry for the shortness. I was feeling lazy. At least I updated. **

**Anyway, please review!**


	5. Dreaming

**Her Own Legend**

**----**

**Chapter Five**

'**Dreaming'**

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**Disclaimer- I do not own Danny Phantom or Eragon. I own Valerie's mom, some characters in Chapter one, and that's it. I think. Possibly. For now.**

**---**

**Okay, I sort-of-semi lied in the last chapter without meaning to when I said there was _no_ DV. There will be _implied_ DV. I don't do romance, as a rule, and I am disgusted by how much implying I've done in the two chapters Danny and Valerie have been in here. Just thought I'd give fair warning, because there's more implying here.**

**---**

_Dani was crouched on a tree branch as a million fragments of memory that weren't hers rushed through her mind. All of them seemed to feature a red-suited girl some deeply buried fragment of Danny announced was Valerie._

_She was dimly aware of Eragon leaving the clearing, but made no attempt to move until later that night when the memories finally faded. She slipped down the tree and crouched down at its base, hugging her knees close to her chest. It was cold and a little bit spooky alone in the mountains at night, and against her better judgment, Dani made a decision._

'Tomorrow I will go down the mountain and find Eragon's village_.' She shivered as a wolf howled somewhere in the distance._

'If I can make it down alive.'

---

She was dreaming again.

Valerie rarely dreamed of anything but ghosts, and when she dreamed of anything else, they were usually stupid things (Last month's had featured a school made entirely of banana peels, where each of her classmates had abruptly turned into said fruit), but tonight was different. Tonight, she was dreaming of her mom. At least, she assumed that the woman before her was her mom. She couldn't really be sure, the logical part of her brain pointed out. But still. She was absolutely positive that this was her mother.

_A brown haired woman with darkish skin who looked around forty or forty-five sat at a simple wooden table. Valerie watched as a younger girl(around her own age) approached the woman, sitting down across from her. As she took her seat, her face was momentarily illuminated by the flickering firelight cast by the quietly burning logs in the corner fireplace, and Valerie gasped, despite not being really surprised. It _was_ her dream, after all. Why _shouldn't_ she be in it?_

"_Mom?" The Dream Valerie asked, and the woman studied her intently._

"_Mom, is that you?" There was still no reply. _

"_Mom!"_

"_Come on, Valerie. Let's go. It's not her." A comforting hand was placed on Dream Valerie's shoulder. It was Danny. "Come on," he added, when Valerie didn't move. "They're waiting for us at Jeod's."_

_Valerie sighed and began to rise, but the woman spoke for the first time._

_Valerie struggled to hear the words, but the dream was breaking up. First there was silence, then the colors started to swirl and distort, and then they dulled to gray, before Valerie returned to wakefulness, snapping up in bed with a start._

Valerie wasn't the only one to have dreams that night. Approximately two and a half miles away, Danny Fenton was twisting and turning under sheets drenched in sweat, after returning less than forty-five minutes ago from patrol. His conversation with Valerie had made him late for curfew (again), and as a direct effect of this, he was now effectively under house arrest for a week.

He didn't mind.

Well, he did, but not as much as usual. His mind was preoccupied- with Valerie. His conversation with her had disturbed him more than he was letting on. She had actually sat and talked with him like a civilized person.

Needless to say, it was a strange occurrence.

And now she was occupying his dreams.

_As in Valerie's dream, the surroundings were clouded. He could only see two people clearly, Valerie and himself (Phantom, not Fenton). Judging by the amount of light and muted brown and green colors around them he guessed that they were in a forest somewhere or other._

"_So now what do we do?" Valerie asked Dream Danny, who shrugged. _

"_What _can_ we do? We're stuck in some woodsy place neither of us has ever seen before, and is probably in another dimension, and to top it off, it's getting dark and-"_

"_And someone's coming!" Valerie interrupted. Both looked up at something Danny couldn't see, but a moment later he saw himself relax slightly._

"_Danielle!"_

_A third person now entered the dream. Dani Fenton, Danny's 'cousin.'_

"_Dani, what are you doing here? Where is here?"_

"_Who's she? How do you know her?"_

_Dani was peppered with questions, but she refused to answer any of them, saying simply, "We're almost at the foot of the mountain. We can be down in an hour or so if we hurry, and then I know somewhere safe we can stay."_

"_Do you trust her?" Valerie whispered to Dream Danny as Dani led the way out of Danny's field of view._

_The dream faded, and Danny woke, his eyes snapping open._

The next morning was a Tuesday. When Danny got to school, the first person he saw was Valerie.

"Hey, Danny," she said. He was sitting on a picnic bench outside the school (Which wouldn't start for another thirty minutes or so. Danny was actually early for once, and Valerie always was, because her dad had to get to work really early and he dropped her off on the way in). She sat down next to him, setting her backpack carelessly on the ground.

"Hi, Val," he answered.

There was a moment or two of silence. Then, at the same time, they both said, "I dreamed about you last night."

Danny blinked, "What?"

So Valerie told him about her dream, then asked, "And what about you? What did you dream about?"

"Oh, you know," he said vaguely, "We were in a forest… some stuff happened…" he was reluctant to tell her that he'd been Phantom at the time, or tell her anything about Dani.

"Real specific there, Danny," she said sarcastically.

He shivered, and a blue mist escaped his mouth, he glanced at Valerie, who to his relief didn't seem to have noticed. She was reading a book Mr. Lancer had assigned them over a week ago, and was supposed to be read by third period that morning.

'_You haven't read that yet,'_ a voice in the back of his mind reminded him.

'_Shut up,' _he told the voice,_ 'I'll get to it later.'_

'_Later?! It's due in two hours!'_

Danny pushed the homework-loving ghost to the back of his mind and focused on looking for the ghost.

He groaned. It was Didious.

---

It had been a while since Dani had first dropped into Eragon's world (At least two months, maybe more), and in that time something very… unexpected had happened, in the form of Eragon's 'stone' hatching into a dragon. Saphira. Dani was staying in the forest, just off the edge of Eragon's family's farm, and when the dragon hatched, she joined her there. Saphira was getting big, now, and Eragon was starting to consider telling his family about her. Maybe, he always said, maybe I'll tell them tomorrow.

On Dani's part, she knew she should have told Eragon about her stone, the orange one, but for some reason she didn't. Maybe some part of her still thought it was the only way to get home. She knew it was an egg. But it wasn't going to hatch anyway, so why should she get rid of it?

_Why should you keep it?_

She could never answer that. Besides, she had more pressing problems now.

The night before, Dani had slept fitfully, and the little sleep she had was punctuated, with short, unclear dreams she couldn't remember. One, however, stood out clear and defined.

_Pure blackness. Dani was standing in the middle of the dark, but it was so thick she felt like she was being smothered by it. She couldn't feel herself in the blackness. It was freezing cold. She was alone… or she thought she was._

_A voice. Deep, and rough. She'd never heard it before, and it spoke in an alien language that she puzzled over for a long while. Hours. She stood in the same position, terrified to move, listening to the same sounds over and over again._

_Understanding. Before she even realized that it was happening, she began to understand what the voice was saying. Well, not exactly saying. It was painting a picture. Showing her an image._

_Recognition. She knew the place she was seeing. The mountain, where she had fallen (Thanks to the stone- it was all the stone's fault, of course)._

_Shock. She saw Danny. How did he get there? She hadn't seen her cousin, not in a long time, and she knew that this wasn't just a bunch of memories combining in her mind, because Danny looked so much older, so different than she thought he would look at (fifteen, now? Was he fifteen now?)_

_Awakening. The dream ended. Dani knew- she had to get to the mountain._


End file.
